


Random Access Memory

by Floral_Murdock



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Force Visions, Gen, No Younglings were harmed, Order 66 (Star Wars), Will Anakin's dreams be useful for once?, set during ROTS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:20:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27074878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Floral_Murdock/pseuds/Floral_Murdock
Summary: Anakin Skywalker is no stranger to ominous portents from the Force. But a series of unsettling, vivid dreams could alter his course irrevocably.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	1. The Past

He didn’t dream of Padme that night. Instead, there was sand all around and two suns in the sky. Even in his dream, the heat was oppressive. Tatooine. His least favorite planet in the galaxy. 

He was back at the Tuskens’ camp. So this was what the Force chose to torture him with tonight, this past memory of his great failure. Soon the scene would shift and he’d be inside, looking at her pained face. . . 

Anakin froze as he heard a low, anguished scream coming from the hut. Shmi hadn’t been able to make noise like that by the end. Was that one of the Tuskens?

No. It was accompanied by a powerful surge in the Force. He couldn’t help but feel it now — his own presence pressed up against his mind like a boulder in the river of the Force. Rage and sorrow fed into the dark cloud around him. His feelings were so big and all-consuming, it was nearly impossible to block him out. How could other Force-sensitives stand to be around him?

The Tusken raiders had Force presences too, albeit small and dim next to his huge oppressive one. Anakin felt them blink out as his past self cut them down. Every slash of the lightsaber fed into the dark churning thing around him. 

He came out of the tent. His Padawan braid and his baby face couldn’t disguise his expression: he was possessed by something far more ancient than he was, some primal instinct to hurt. The darkness pulsed thick and unstoppable like some oil-polluted ocean tide. Anakin would swear he saw a flash of amber in his red tearstained eyes. 

He went methodically tent by tent. He came down on them like a force of nature. Tuskens cried out and made noises that sounded too much like pleading: not just for them, but for their families too. 

But past-Anakin didn’t seem to hear or care. He cut through the camp like a battle droid, not seeming to even see the carnage he created. It was ugly to watch, his face twisted with rage and despair. There was no elegance or finesse to his movements. He just hacked away until there was nowhere left to vent his rage. 

By the end, he was the only living being in the camp. 

Satisfied that there was nothing left to destroy, he went back to the hut to retrieve his mother. Anakin turned around. He had no desire to have that image haunt him night and day as it had just after this happened the first time. 

Standing there was his mother, alive and well. She bore none of the marks of her captivity, but she looked at him with a deep sadness. 

“Mom.” Even if she was a figment of his imagination, if this was only another vision sent to torture him, he didn’t care. He embraced her. Even through the dream, he could feel her warmth and smell the particular scent of her, the only real home he’d ever known. 

“Ani.” She hugged him back. “It’s good to see you.”

He stepped back. The carnage of the Tusken camp was still on full display. Shame roiled in his stomach. 

“Did you think that’s what I would have wanted?” Her voice was soft and measured. 

He hadn’t thought at all. It grief, anger, and hate made manifest. They had hurt his family, so he hurt them back.

“I’m sorry,” he said desperately. Was this his punishment? To face her judgement for what he had done?

She turned to him. “Did it make you feel better?”

“For a few minutes,” he admitted. “I don’t think I really understood what I had done until I tried to explain it to Padme. I was just completely out of control.” And dangerously close to the Dark Side, though he didn’t feel prepared to admit that out loud. 

Shmi looked out at the wreckage, pensive. “There are some parts of the Jedi Code that I don’t think you’re ever going to be able to abide by.” 

“Oh?” The Chancellor had said so often enough. The Jedi Council seemed to imply it more and more as of late. 

“You always loved so deeply and so fast. It’s what makes you so good, and they would turn that into a fault. And then when you have to keep it all inside you, it festers and turns into this.” She gestured to the ruined Tusken camp.

He laughed weakly. “I can’t argue with that.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t even know if I’ll still be a Jedi after all this. I’m so mad at them all the time. It feels like the war is never going to end, and it’s getting harder and harder for Padme and I to hide. And then there’s the baby. Who I love, and I want to be able to raise, but it’s getting harder and harder to see a future where I get to be together with my family and everything will be okay. Half the time I don’t even think we’ll all make it through alive.” He took himself aback. He didn’t have anyone in his real life to articulate these fears to: he didn’t want to stress Padme out any more than he already had, and no one else could know how close he was to falling apart. Not even the Chancellor.

“It won’t be easy, but you will make it through. You will love them enough to make the hard choices.”

Her confidence that he might be a good parent --- that he would get to be a parent at all --- eased something in him. If Shmi could make him feel safe and loved as a slave on a miserable dustball of a planet, he could protect his family.

“I wish my child could know you,” he told her. 

“They will. You will tell them about me.” 

She started to fade around the edges. Anakin felt an instinctive urge to pull her in and not let go, so he did. She gripped him with ethereal hands and looked up into his face.

“Even when I can’t be proud of you, I love you more than you can imagine.” 

She turned to dust under his hands. 

***

He was flung back hard into consciousness. He must have made some kind of noise, because Padme was at his back with a soothing hand on his shoulder. 

“The same dream again?” she asked. Her mouth was set, concerned. She put the nightmares down to stress. Said nothing happened to women in childbirth as long as they had proper medical care, which she certainly would. But he knew better. These were the same as his dreams of his mother, had the same insistent ring of inevitability about them. 

“No, an old one. My mother,” he admitted. 

“That hasn’t happened in a long time, has it?” 

Her last moments were certainly part of his repertoire of regular, non-Force-related nightmares, but now they had so much competition in terms of terrible things he’d seen. “Every once in a while I still see it. But usually, I see it the same way again. This time, I saw myself from the outside.” He didn’t tell her what he’d had to watch himself do. No need to remind her of that after so long. “And then I saw her, not hurt at all, and I got to talk to her.” 

“Was it nice?” (Her tone reminded him forcefully of his mother: did it make you feel better?)

“To talk to her? Yeah, it was.” He’d suffer her judgement of all the bad things he’d ever done a hundred times over if it meant seeing her again. 

“Good. I’m glad.” Padme brushed a kiss over his forehead. He was relieved she didn’t push him for details. 

She rolled over and went to sleep. But when he closed his eyes, all he could see were dead Tusken Raiders and his mother’s eyes, looking at him with impossible sadness.


	2. The Present

Anakin’s thoughts raced like the blur of traffic that streaked across the sky of Coruscant. He stared out the window of the temple across the vast expanse of speeders and buildings. 

His head ached right behind his eye sockets. Static prickled in his flesh arm. The nightmares were ever more frequent and unbearable. Every time he closed his eyes, he had to watch his wife die in childbirth. And he’d just sold out his only chance at forestalling her death. Mace Windu was on his way to arrest Palpatine, and with him died the only glimmer of hope he’d found that he wouldn’t have to lose her. 

Sometimes, it was like he could sense Padmé through the Force, though such a thing should have been impossible when she was across the city. Still, her gentle, steady presence touched the edges of his consciousness like shores of the lake country on Naboo. But something else churned under the surface of her mind --- an omnipresent anxiety. For the democracy she served, for their baby, for him. She knew he was on edge, that he hadn’t slept more than a couple hours in a week. That he was running on adrenaline and the Force. 

His forehead hit the glass. He only felt it after the fact — he was losing little bits of time. Was he really going to fall asleep here, where anyone could see him? Now, when the future of the galaxy and of his family hung in the balance? 

He willed himself to stay upright, but something was pulling him down, down. . . gentle blackness crept over his senses and overwhelmed everything else. 

One last thought shot up, sharp and desperate, as he fought to stay awake. My love, forgive me. I was too weak. 

***  
The glass and metal of the temple was gone. In its place was the familiar plush velvet of the Chancellor’s office. But it thrummed with something new and heady and dangerous. It seemed to beckon to him: come. Your problems could be no more. 

Mace Windu had the Chancellor cornered on the floor by the shattered window, lightsaber held above his neck. He could execute him right there. Anakin — and it was so strange to see himself as he’d appeared in the glass that morning, shadows under his eyes and all — watched as they faced off for his loyalty. 

“I told you it would come to this! I was right. The Jedi are taking over!” Huddled on the floor, Windu looming over him with his lightsaber, he cut a pathetic figure. Anakin knew he was the Sith Lord, knew he was supposed to be the evil the Jedi fought against. But was it really right, for a Jedi to cut down a seemingly defenseless old man?

“The oppression of the Sith will never return. You have lost!” 

“No, no, no, NO. . . Palpatine repeated, his voice dropping into a deranged rasp. “YOU will die!” 

He shot massive branches of purple lighting at Windu. It sent an odd thrill down Anakin’s spine. The Chancellor had never been a harmless old man. He’d been capable of this the entire time Anakin had known him. 

“He is the traitor!” Mace ground out as he blocked some of the lighting with his lightsaber. 

“I have the power to save the one you love! Don’t let him kill me.” Palpatine --- Sidious’s --- face melted in on itself, like some kind of grotesque wax mask. He tried to readopt the helpless persona of the Chancellor even as it was all Master Windu could do to fend off his attack. 

Anakin knew, with a horrible certainty, what his other self would do. His double sliced off Windu’s arm and stood aside as Palpatine threw him out the window. 

He knelt before Palpatine. Pledged himself to the Sith. Palpatine gave him his new name: arise, Lord Vader.

“Execute Order 66,” he heard the Sith Lord say as the room faded around them. 

They materialized again outside of the Jedi Temple. Vader headed a squad of clones with blasters drawn.

He watched in horror as Vader pressed forward with the clone troopers, casually cutting through the temple guards as he went. 

Vader was more powerful than he was: he took down other knights and even masters. Anakin tried not to look at their faces, to see which of his fellow Jedi he felled. Surely even if he turned, it wouldn’t come to this. 

Vader and the clones went on until they got to the chamber where the younglings huddled together. 

“Master Skywalker, there’s too many of them. What are we going to do?” 

Anakin thought he might be sick. “No,” he said aloud, almost involuntarily. 

Vader unsheathed his lightsaber.

“NO!” Anakin screamed. He launched himself at Vader. Some invisible power pulled him back. 

“You can’t interfere with what you see.” An old man stood next to him, white-haired and weathered. But his steady presence and clipped accent were extremely familiar. 

“Obi-Wan, please. I can’t watch any more of this.” Anakin hated the way his voice came out, broken and pleading. 

“That’s what I said too,” Obi-Wan said grimly. 

“I wouldn’t do this. That’s not me, it can’t be.” But he knew it was. He’d come so close to joining Palpatine before he’d passed out in the council chambers. And when he’d seen himself in his dream the other night, hacking his way through the Tusken camp. . . 

“You can’t deny what’s right in front of you, even if what you see is painful. That’s where I went wrong.”

Where I went wrong with you. Obi-Wan would never say it out loud, but Anakin heard it regardless. 

Mercifully, the walls of the temple fell away. They were on the burning surface of a lava planet. Vader stood at attention with his hands behind his back.

A Naboo cruiser — Padme’s cruiser, he realized — approached the surface. His stomach twisted. After what he’d done in the temple, he didn’t trust Vader anywhere near his wife. 

Padme came out to talk to Vader. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he did see Vader getting progressively more and more upset. 

“Ani, you’re breaking my heart!” Then, suddenly, her feet were several feet off the ground as Vader tightened an invisible hand around her throat. 

Blood rushed to his face. Potent waves of rage washed over him. If he hadn’t already tried and failed to attack Vader, he’d be swimming in one of those open craters of lava. 

“Why would he —“ Anakin’s voice broke, and he looked away. His eyes stung, and not from the heat and glare. But how dare he cry about it to Obi-Wan when he’d done that to her himself?

“That’s how I knew you were truly gone,” Old Obi-Wan said. “If anyone could reason with him, it would be her.” 

His Obi-Wan, young and red-haired, stepped off the landing platform. His arrival effectively distracted Vader, but it was almost too late: Padmé fell to the ground, unconscious. Anakin’s heart was in his throat. 

“She’s alive,” the old man said quietly. 

Vader accused Obi-Wan of conspiring (cheating?) with Padmé. His yellow eyes were wild and feverish, his tone frenetic. He drew his lightsaber, and Obi-Wan met him with his own blade. 

They were all too familiar with each other’s fighting styles. Sometimes it looked like Obi-Wan was on the defensive, but Anakin knew his fighting style well enough to know he was exactly where he wanted to be. Vader was reckless, almost sloppy: he made unnecessary leaps and flips while Obi-Wan waited for him to advance. He finally understood why Obi-Wan always called him out for being unnecessarily cocky. 

They crisscrossed the mining facility, over steel structures and chunks of fallen bridges. They ended up at an impasse standing on two floating chunks of machinery. 

“I have failed you Anakin.” He turned to Old Obi-Wan, who watched the proceedings somberly. He tried to reach across their bond, only to find Obi-Wan’s mind hidden behind a shield like a sandstone cliff. 

“I should have known the Jedi were plotting to take over!” Hearing it out of Vader’s mouth, it sounded like the conspiratorial lie it was. How had he ever trusted Palpatine so blindly?

“Anakin, the Chancellor is evil!” 

“From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!” Anakin cringed. He sounded like a Padawan doing a negotiation exercise. 

“Then you are lost!” 

“This is the end for you, my master.” Anakin looked away. At least he was pretty sure his Sith equivalent couldn’t murder Obi-Wan, as the elderly version was standing right beside him. 

“Don’t try it Anakin, I have the high ground.” 

Vader tried it. He leaped down from his platform, limbs splayed out. Obi-Wan sliced through his hand --- his organic hand --- and both his legs. He screamed as he fell onto the banks of the lava river. First the dangling fabric of his pants caught fire. Then it traveled up his body to his chest and head until he was completely engulfed in flame. 

Anakin watched himself burn. 

“I HATE YOU!” Vader managed to grit out as his hair singed and turned to ash. His sickly golden eyes, yellow like the molten lava behind him, fixed Obi-Wan with a look of muddled betrayal and hatred. 

“You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you.” Obi-Wan walked away and left him to the mercies of the lava planet.

Anakin turned to the old Obi-Wan, still standing beside him. The old man watched his past self walk away, looking impossibly sad and weary. 

“It wasn’t true, you know,” Obi-Wan said. Anakin felt something sink deep in his chest. This was what he always feared he’d hear from Obi-Wan, that confirmation that the other man was too good a Jedi to get attached to his poor failed Padawan. 

“I never stopped loving you. That’s why I couldn’t do what I knew was right.” 

He started to fade at the edges, as his mother had some nights before. “NO! OBI-WAN!”

Then, all the sudden, he could feel it. The burning, from the top of his head across his entire body. Not just his skin, but inside: the heat charred his sinuses, his lungs. Everything faded to white. All he knew was burning burning burning. 

If Obi-Wan had really loved him, he wouldn’t have left him like this. 

There were bits of sound and impressions of what happened next: A cold table, agonizing against his burnt flesh. The whirring of a medroid, painful screws in his knees and shoulders. Needles everywhere. A claustrophobic mask rubbed hot against his ruined face and tinted the whole world red.

Sidious’s voice: “It seems in your anger, you killed her.” 

NO!

He heard someone screaming. Distantly, he realized it was him. 

***  
He lurched awake. The tingling in his natural extremities meant they were still there. 

He was on his knees. He would do so many horrible things. He had decimated this place. Destroyed the very order he’d sworn to serve. All those people, all those lives blinked out for no reason. And Padme. . . he would be the thing that killed her. 

A whole new wave of self-loathing crashed over him. His stomach lurched.

Footsteps. He tried to pull himself into a standing position. His throat hurt, which usually meant he’d been screaming loud enough to wake Padmé. Someone would be coming any second. 

Gray hair, non-combat robes. It was Jocasta Nu, the temple archivist. She helped him up from the floor. “Skywalker? What’s wrong?”

Where to even start? “I had a vision,” he choked out. “The Sith Lord has control of the clones. They’re on their way to attack the temple.” 

“Right now? You’re sure?” 

“Chancellor Palpatine is the Sith Lord. Mace Windu and some others went to go take him into custody. They will fail. We have to get everyone out,” Anakin’s mind flashed immediately to the blond youngling in his vision. “Starting with the younglings.” 

“You’re absolutely certain this vision was real?” 

“Yes. He already admitted to me that he was the Sith Lord, several members of the council went to go confront him.” 

“Force help us.” He felt the smallest flash of dread from her before she could banish it. “I’ll go send out the beacon, make sure all the masters know. You make the announcement. Then I’ll catch up with you in the docking bays to help with the evacuation. ” 

She hurried into the core of the temple, where the beacon was stationed that would warn all the Jedi to stay clear of their home. Soon, her voice echoed through the main speaker system of the Temple.

“Calling all Jedi in the Temple to attention. This is Madame Nu. We have reason to believe we will soon be under attack by Republic military forces. Please follow the appropriate security and evacuation protocols at this time. We will keep you updated until the Council can give you more detailed directives.” 

Younglings, Padawans, and non-combatants would be sheltered deep in the bowels of the temple. Knights and masters would report to their assigned security posts. So many of them were out on missions, however, that there were major holes in the defense. Anakin took the turbo lift down from the council spire, and sprinted to the entrance to the crèche. 

There was a distant echo of blaster fire across the Temple. An alarm blared. The attack had begun. Bootsteps thudded over the stone stairs. His heart leapt into his throat — it was real, no longer just an abstract vision. The Jedi Temple was under attack for the first time in living memory. 

He ignited his lightsaber and waited. 

He could hear hundreds of booted footsteps down the hall. They came in in a cavalcade of blaster bolts, which bounced off his lightsaber and refracted back on his opponents. Their numbers were staggering: it seemed like every clone in the galaxy had been deployed to the temple. 

He hacked and slashed through the clones. They came at him like battle droids, and he took them down like battle droids. Blood rushed in his ears. The Force flowed clear and cold through him. 

What was wrong with him, that this felt so right? 

“Master Skywalker!” A high voice broke him out of his trance. It seemed to be coming from the other end of the hall, but there was no one there. He could sense anxiety and urgency through the muddle of death in the Force. 

“There’s no one left!” 

“Where are you?” He asked between blows. There were too many of them now, If he could just give himself back over to the Force. . . 

“There’s no time! Please!!” 

The clones cast about for the source of the sound. Then Anakin figured it out --- the vent. He pried the cover off with his metal hand and scrambled inside. He barely fit. A clone tried to follow after him, but his bulky shoulder padding meant he couldn’t get in past his head. Anakin took the opportunity to summon his blaster with the Force and shoot behind him. 

He hadn’t had much occasion to climb up in the vents recently, but as a Padawan they were one of his favorite ways to navigate the temple. It drove Obi-Wan mad, looking for him. . . 

No. Don’t think of that. He reached out for the girl instead. As soon as he let his shields down, there was fear horror death screaming back at him from every part of the temple. There was nothing he could do about it besides what he was doing now. He took a deep breath and focused on the girl, her worried presence. 

She was to the left and below him — a tiny room, a supply closet maybe? He kicked out the grate and dropped down. 

He saw her jump silently. A Twi’lek girl, smaller than Ashoka had been when she became a Padawan. 

“It’s me, it’s Commander Skywalker,” he whispered. “Where did you come from?” 

She looked up at the vent he’d just exited. He nodded. 

“There’s a group of younglings. I’m the oldest, Master Allie was helping me look after them and then he told us to go. . .”

“Can you lead me to them?” Anakin asked. She nodded, and climbed up into the vent. He used the Force to jump in after her. 

He had to squeeze himself into the narrow passages off the main vents. She seemed to be taking them back and forth through the bowels of the temple. It was very smart, he realized --- it made them much more difficult to track. 

Her breath hitched, breaking his train of thought. He reached out in the Force and felt her grief, fear, worry. She’d never been out on a battlefield, never had to block out the awful sensation of beings ceasing to exist in the Force. He had to distract her, help her hold off the breakdown until no one was trying to kill them. 

“What’s your name?” 

“Meena.” 

“How did you find me?” 

“I was just trying to find anyone, but I couldn’t find any of the knights I knew. As soon as I could sense someone, it would. . . anyway. I knew it was you because you’re so loud in the Force --- sorry, is that mean?” 

“No, people tell me that all the time. When I was a Padawan, it took me forever to be able to shield myself well enough to sneak away from Obi-Wan.” 

“That’s what I used to use the air ducts for. Sneaking,” Meena admitted. “I knew I could throw my voice from that room because I used it once to prank Master Windu.” 

Anakin could imagine Mace Windu, possibly the most humorless person in the Order, trying to find her disembodied voice, and the lecture that would come after. “Do you also enjoy baiting rancors?” 

Meena didn’t laugh, but he thought he could hear some of the tension release from her voice. “We’re coming down up here.” She took the cover off the vent and landed smoothly, padding her fall with the Force. 

They emerged in the council chamber, meant to be the last refuge in case the temple was breached. A few dozen Padawans huddled behind chairs and away from doors.

“I’m back,” Meena said. “I found Master Skywalker.” 

A blond boy stepped forward. “Master Skywalker? What are we going to do?”

That line was sickeningly familiar. Anakin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “We need to get all of you to the hanger,” he told them. “There are shuttles there that can at least get you off-planet.” 

“But what about all the others?”

More than likely, there weren’t many others left. If they went and looked, they’d all be dead. 

“They’re going to have to find their own ways out.” It wasn’t quite a lie, but it wasn’t the cold hard truth. Obi-Wan would be proud. 

“It’s too dangerous to go out into the Temple. We have to go back up in the vents. I’ll go first, because I don’t know what we’re going to find when we come down. Those of you who are taller or can use the Force, help the younger ones get up. Meena, can you bring up the back?” 

She nodded. He did a quick headcount --- 26. “We need 26 people up in the air duct. Count yourselves off so we know we aren’t forgetting anyone.” 

He climbed back up into the vent. He climbed further in as they counted themselves off, from one to Meena’s “twenty-six.” 

“Okay, here we go.” He tried to map out the Jedi Temple in his mind. They were near the center, and they needed to reach the docking bay. If they took this right and then went straight. . . 

The metal got cooler under his arm. They were on the very edge of the Temple. He found a grate and tried to hear what was going on below.

It was too quiet. He couldn’t hear any clones, which meant they were probably standing primed to ambush them. There was no way they’d leave the primary evacuation route open. 

He lifted the grate and jumped down. He still couldn’t see or sense any clones. They had a straight path down to the hangar, where there would be an escape shuttle ready to activate. The whole situation had “trap” written all over it, but what else could he do? 

“Come on,” he said to the open grate. He helped the first of the younglings down, a girl with long brown braids down her back. 

“Go to that ship over there,” he told her, pointing out a small cruiser that would surely have an emergency autopilot function. “Everyone else will be right behind you.” 

He’d make sure one of the older ones knew how to initiate launch. 

As he placed a Wookiee boy down on the ground, an icy cold sensation crept up his spine. Thick, choking and oppressive — the Dark Side. 

He whipped around, lightsaber already ignited. A black clad figure dropped down from a post high above the hangar. 

“Go,” he urged the younglings still in the vent. He ran toward the black cloak at the edge of his vision. 

The figure met his blue lightsaber with its own red. He stared at its face as he felt the color drain in his. He knew what it felt like inside that mask. 

It was bulky and slow, like he knew it would be. He darted around it and blocked its heavy blows. 

He couldn’t lose himself fully in the fight. Part of his consciousness was still focused on the younglings. He felt Meena’s feet hit the ground on the heels of a younger boy --- she was the last one. 

He focused back on the fight just in time to keep the creature from sinking its lightsaber into his shoulder. Their lightsabers were locked. He flipped out of its reach, but it blocked off his way out. He kept himself between the thing and the escape vessel. 

Meena was running toward the ship, dragging the younger boy behind her by the hand. Distract it distract it distract it. . . .

“So what are you, a droid? Cyborg?” Anakin asked it conversationally. “Pal --- Sidious would have a plan B. I’d love to know what kind of sentient garbage he found to dump into a cyborg suit at such short notice.” 

“What are you talking about?” It spoke in that deep, booming voice that he knew wasn’t its own. Anakin smiled. 

“Is the suit life support? Are you just a brain and some malfunctioning lungs, like Grievous?” 

It struck out at him messily, and he feinted away. He landed a clean blow on its shoulder. Its right arm sizzled to the ground, and it doubled over in pain. 

It wasn’t a droid. The smell that hit his nose was not melted plastic and fried circuits, but the last thing he’d smelled on Mustafar before his scent receptors were completely burnt. 

It made a noise like a guttural growl and turned to Meera, a few yards from the ship. The boy with her stumbled, and she helped him up. 

“No!” Anakin saw red. The only thought in his head was to attack. He ran to put himself between Meena and the creature. He slashed at its head so it had to bend, then kicked it in the chest with two feet. It got back up. He swiped at its chest, leaving a smouldering gash. He hacked at its face, shearing off bits of metal and plastic. What was underneath? 

“Get out of the way!” A giant piece of metal flew over Anakin’s head and pinned the hulking thing to the floor. 

Anakin raised his lightsaber to finish the job. 

“Come on! There’s no time!” Meena yelled. She stood on the threshold of the ship, pressing what seemed to be random buttons on a control panel. “Someone has to fly the ship!”

Anakin looked down. The mask was shattered. Vader’s hair was shorter than his, and there was no scar over his eye. It might have been his younger self staring back at him in hatred. 

“What did my master ever see in you?” Vader rasped.

Anakin shrugged. “Force only knows.”

He turned away from Vader and sheathed his lightsaber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can’t tell me Palpatine didn’t have an Anakin clone lying around, just in case.


End file.
